Week 6
Monday
Who knew changing in the locker room would be so stressful.
Rukawa wasn't bashful--didn't have a bashful bone in his body. Didn't understand what he had to be bashful about.
Now, he wasn't so sure about that. Not when Sakuragi was staring at him like he had a second head.
Thankfully he had his back to him.
He wasn't wearing a shirt.
He thought maybe he should amend that quickly.
Stop staring at me. He was tempted to say.
But then that would call attention to him with a locker room full of teammates that had changed and showered in front of each other on a daily basis for about half a year.
It was still rightly freaking him out, because Sakuragi's stare wasn't letting up.
Did he have something on his back?
Did Sakuragi stick something on his back?
A note, a piece of gum…
God, what was back there that was so interesting?
He grabbed his shirt and roughly pulled it on, and somehow ended up putting it on backwards, which had earned him a look from Miyagi and a chuckle from Kogure.
Tch. He could careless. All he wanted to do was get out of here, and grabbing his duffle bag, he shoved his dirty clothes in and slammed his locker shut.
When he passed Sakuragi, the boy was staring at his arm and distractedly picking at a scab while in the process completely ignoring him, like Sakuragi hadn't just been staring him down like he'd stolen something from the idiot.
Tuesday
Practice was another weird situation after another, as Sakuragi had made it his personal vendetta of sticking to him throughout the whole game.
After a while Akagi had given up on telling Sakuragi to go guard other people, which Rukawa thought was unusual, since their captain always made it a point to follow orders. Akagi stressed the importants of following orders and cooperation within the team.
But apparently not today.
Akagi didn't even say anything when Sakuragi blatantly fouled him by checking him with his shoulder, even going so far as stepping on his foot and reaching a hand a little too closely to his stomach to call accidental.
Was Sakuragi trying to psyche him out?
Well, whatever it was, he wasn't going to just stand here and let Sakuragi try to control the rhythm of the game.
He stole the ball from Sakuragi. He might have improved, but he was still sloppy with guarding himself and Rukawa was all to ready to exploit that weakness. However, he hadn't expected for Sakuragi to tackle him into the floor, the heavier player landing most of his weight on him and knocking the breath right out of him.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, YOU MORON!" He heard Akagi scream while simultaneously kicking Sakuragi into a roll and off of him. "THIS IS NOT RUGBY!"
Wednesday
Even though Sakuragi sometimes forget himself and fouled people like it was going out of style, it still didn't explain how he had horribly reverted back to a foul a minute. The difference though was that this time, he was only fouling one person.
He was that unlucky person.
Akagi had asked him during a water-break to please bear with it, since Sakuragi was making progress with his jump shots and taking him out of the game might upset that.
Rukawa still didn't understand how their captain had such a change of heart over just sitting the idiot out like he always did.
If he did care--which he didn't--he would have told his senior he was starting to sound dangerously like he was picking favorites. Rukawa wasn't bothered by this notion, as he had guessed some months ago that Akagi respected the idiot. Their captain somewhat spoiled him in his own way, as did everybody else for that matter.
He didn't really care either way, since he was obviously the better basketball player and Sakuragi just needed more guidance…
And somewhere in the middle of his tangent, he had somehow completely lost whatever point it was he had been trying to make…
Thursday
Sakuragi was behind him.
His sneakers screeching against the waxed floor, as the redhead shifted his weight from his right and left foot and cut him off from escaping around his outstretched arms.
Sakuragi was breathing on his neck.
Rukawa made a feint to the left, but surprisingly Sakuragi hadn't fallen for it with his usual gung-ho gullibility. He was actually sticking his ground and doing a pretty good job of blocking him.
He was really persistent today.
Rukawa feinted twice, but he wasn't able to shake off Sakuragi and it didn't look like he could escape the five-second rule either.
However, before the whistle could blow, Sakuragi had stepped in closer, his chest slightly pressing into his back.
Sakuragi's breath was coming quicker.
The whistle blew.
Friday
"Get him to stick to somebody else." He asked Akagi, while Ayako, Kogure and Mitsui looked on from their seats on the bench.
"Look, he's good at guarding you and I think he's improving because of it." Akagi said prosaically.
Kogure agreed and looked to his gangbanger boyfriend for support.
Mitsui nodded obediently.
Sellout.
"What's this really about?" Akagi asked.
Kogure coughed in his palm and suspiciously it had sounded like a laugh.
Mitsui was "innocently" looking around them, and Rukawa didn't know how the once-leader-of-a-gang pulled it off with that mug of his. Thug or no thug, he was still a mean looking bastard.
Rukawa answered, as seriously as he could, which was pretty serious, "Get him off my ass."
For some reason, Kogure was coughing some more, all of the coughs sounding suspiciously like choked laughter and Mitsui, scared that his daffodil of a boytoy would do them all a favor and choke to death, patted him on the back.
Ayako interjected at that moment, her lips pursed as she considered his request. Thank god there was someone reasonable in the room.
"You guys are just too funny." She said, and her hands were up to her face, her cheeks red from holding back…laughter?
What the hell was so funny?
Akagi seemed to be in the same boat as him, as he stared at Ayako and Kogure, who were fidgeting around in their seats on the bench, their faces squeezed together in similar expressions of painful suppression.
Damn if Ayako wasn't a girl and Kogure wasn't such a girl, he would have hit them both.
"Look, just deal with it. I don't see why you're complaining. You've never complained before."
That was true. But he'd never had to put up with shit like this. Sure Sakuragi was a flaming asshole to him come everyday of the week, but that had never interfered with his game. It was frustrating to be more focused on Sakuragi's position on the court than his own. He was just too hyper aware of Sakuragi and it was hurting him out on the court.
"Well don't blame me when something happens," he said and Akagi had waved him off like his threat didn't mean anything.
Saturday
He went to the outdoors basketball court and it was about two minutes in his practice game that Sakuragi had showed up.
They played on separate sides of the court.
They said nothing to each other.
Until Sakuragi's ball had rolled over on his side. He had chucked it over to him and Sakuragi had caught it easily enough, but after some minutes, Sakuragi was still standing there.
Like he was waiting for something.
Rukawa for all the blaring red lights going off in his head that said to ignore the lumbering moron still cocked his head at him and lifted an eyebrow in question. He thought he would feel too stupid asking out loud what the hell Sakuragi's problem was, so this gesture seemed to suffice.
"I was…um wondering…"
Why you're an idiot. He was about to finish, but kept his tongue in cheek.
"If you…" Sakuragi mumbled something under his breath that suspiciously sounded like fox. Rukawa narrowed his eyes, or narrowed them more than they were, and thought that Sakuragi wasn't helping his cause. Sakuragi scratched behind his neck and opened his mouth, "My defense…is…"
God spit it out, Rukawa thought and was getting impatient. He wanted to return to his game.
"I want you to help me with my defense," Sakuragi said in one breath. Rukawa could have chosen to be shocked at that moment by the fact that Sakuragi was asking for his help on his own, instead of someone having to yell him into doing it, but no, it wasn't shock.
It was more agitation, because that wasn't the way you asked people to help you.
"I want." He repeated so Sakuragi could hear that he didn't like the way he'd phrased his words.
"C'mon." Sakuragi made an impatient motion and Rukawa thought that teaching Sakuragi the meaning of the words "please" and "thank you" should come first before defense. Although that made him sound like a hypocrite since he didn't really know the meaning of those words either.
Whatever.
"Fine." He said, and Sakuragi was walking over to his side of the court.
Sunday
They'd met at the outdoor basketball court again, as both seemed to work on the same schedule since they were both morning players.
From yesterday's practice game, Rukawa had found out more about Sakuragi's style of play than he had during school practice. Sakuragi had a weird way of spontaneous dribbling. Had a weird stopping and starting motion that made his opponents probably dizzy from the constant changes in his game. It surely wasn't something that was easy to play against and formulate a plan of attack, as Sakuragi's bursts of energy seemed limitless.
Plainly put, the fucker had a lot of energy.
Rukawa could boast of an equal amount of stamina and willpower, as that was what it came down to most of the time, but Sakuragi was a horse.
He had good breathing technique, which was probably due to him being punched in the stomach for most of his life. He dribbled, but his dribbling wasn't light like Rukawa's. It hit the ground with a solid impact and Rukawa didn't think it would be pleasant to be nailed in the toe with something like that. Sakuragi was an aggressive player. Everything he did aggressively, from dribbling to passing, to getting the ball when it went out of rebounds. He just dove into everything like an idiot, which made sense…because he was. Sakuragi was a power forward. He was a small forward. They had very different ways of playing the game, but it all seemed to balance itself out when he played offense and Sakuragi played defense, Sakuragi's unending driving tactics to his cool, sweeping ones.
Sakuragi didn't have footwork down, but Rukawa did and he was running circles around the other. However, Sakuragi did have speed as he chased after him and tried to keep him from sinking baskets.
Today's game wasn't a teaching game. There was no set defender and offender. Rukawa had always been interested in seeing how he matched up one on one with Sakuragi. Although he would never say this out loud, he was still curious. He knew he was better, more skillful, but Sakuragi was relentless and he was using intimidation techniques on him throughout the game. Like he was going to fall for that.
He was just as tall as Sakuragi, maybe one or two inches under without his shoes, but still, the idiot was hoarding over him.
He ended up beating Sakuragi by a large margin, not surprising, and it was good to impose his skill over the other and yet, he felt horrendously tired.
He tried to not let it show on his face.
Sakuragi was breathing and cursing. Yet Sakuragi was focused more on cursing, while Rukawa just wanted more air to get to his lungs.
Rukawa realized that practicing with someone like Sakuragi was a much better method of training than practicing alone.
He made a note of that.